I am looking for 10 volunteers to test a telephony service we are working on at the moment. It won’t cost the individuals anything except the cost of a standard text message for one of the services. What is in it for the volunteers? They can call most landline and mobile phones anywhere in the world for up to one hour for free during the trial!

The service will initially be targeted at foreigners/students working and living in the UK and Spain who may not have landline phones but do have a local pay as you go mobile phone, would like to call home at reasonable prices but do not want to have to go to a call shop, internet café or phone box.

The actual calls are passed over the BT network, a Tier 1 carrier, so the quality should be good. However there is one annoying inconvenience at present. The service uses a calling method known as Third Party Calling. This is a ring-back method. You specify the Calling number “the Caller” and the number to be called “the Callee”. The service will first ring the Caller. The caller answers the call and will hear the following message “You have been invited to a telephone call. Please press 1 to proceed”. You press 1 and the Callee is rung. However, whilst the Callee is being rung the Caller does not hear any ring tone or any other comfort messages so don’t hang up. The Callee will be rung for 30 seconds even though you hear no ring tone.

BT is working on this issue and believes it will have a remedy by Q2 2008.

When making calls from mobile phones you must not withhold your mobile number as the service uses this information to establish that you are registered and will be the Caller.

Don’t use the service from a roaming mobile phone (you are travelling abroad) as you will be charged by your network provider for the incoming call when the HappyTalk service calls you back.

What would I like in return?

If at all possible, when your credits have run out, could you please send me a brief email with your comments on the service covering aspects such as ease of use, quality of calls, website layout/content and general impressions.
Please list four things you liked about the service and four things you disliked about the service.

Remember only 10 volunteers needed so it will be first come first served!